Eddie Huang, creator of ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat comedy, is set to open the Toronto Film Festival’s TIFF Docs sidebar with a world premiere for Vice is Broke, a documentary about the rise and fall of Vice Media.
Huang will chronicle events leading up to Shane Smith’s Vice Media, a scrappy media player once valued at $5.7 billion, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023 to open the way for a sale of the company.
There’s also world bows in Toronto’s documentary strand for Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story, directed by Sinéad O’Shea, who did hours of interviews with the legendary Irish novelist in the last year of O’Brien’s life; Jen Gaiten and Screwball doc maker Billy Corben bringing Men of War, about a former U.S. Green Beret caught up in a failed 2020 coup to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro; and Steve Pink’s The Last Republican, about former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who broke ranks and repudiated Donald Trump.
There’s also world premieres for Marah Strauch and Bryce Leavitt’s Space Cowboy, about the world of stunt skydiving and “free-fall” cinematography; directors Joanne Robertson and Neil Diamond’s So Surreal: Behind the Masks, which foregrounds efforts to return cultural artifacts to the Yup’ik and Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw nations; and Halima Elkhatabi’s Living Together, a film that captures apartment seekers in Montreal chasing the ideal roommate.
There’s also world debuts for Ted Passon’s Patrice: The Movie; Lina Vdovîi and Radu Ciorniciuc’s Tata, about co-director Vdovîi trying to reconnect with her estranged father; Anastasiia Bortuali’s Temporary Shelter, about Ukrainian refugees making a new life in Iceland after the 2022 Russian invasion of their homeland; Santiago Esteinou’s The Freedom of Fierro; The Speed Cubers director Sue Kim’s latest doc, The Last of the Sea Women, about elderly female free divers; and Ali Weinstein’s Your Tomorrow.
TIFF’s Doc program in all booked 21 titles from 24 countries, many of which are sales titles. That includes a North American premiere for Raoul Peck’s latest film, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, which bowed in Cannes and portrays the life of a pioneering Black freelance photographer in South Africa. Peck world premiered his James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro at TIFF in 2016.
Toronto is also giving a Canadian premiere to No Other Land, from directors Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist, and Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist, who faced a brutal backlash after their prize-winning acceptance speech at the Berlin Film Festival for a documentary about the Israeli government’s attempts to expel Palestinians from the West Bank.
Toronto earlier announced documentaries elsewhere in the 2024 event, including R.J. Culter and David Furnish’s Elton John: Never Too Late; Cosima Spender’s Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe; and Thom Zimny’s Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band.
A full list of TIFF Docs titles follows:
A Sisters’ Tale, Leila Amini, International Premiere
Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story, Sinéad O’Shea, World Premiere
Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, Raoul Peck. North American Premiere
From Ground Zero, Wissam Moussa, Nidal Damo, Ahmed Hassouna, Alaa Ayoub, Karim Satoum, Bashar Al Babisi, Khamis Masharawi, Nida’A Abu Hasna, Tamer Nijim, Ahmed Al Danaf, Rima Mahmoud, Muhammad Al Sharif, Basil El Maqousi, Mustafa Al Nabih, Rabab Khamis, Mustafa Kulab, Alaa Damo, Hana Eleiwa, Mahdi Kreirah, Aws Al Banna, Islam Al Zeriei, Etimad Washah, North American Premiere
Living Together, Halima Elkhatabi, World Premiere
Men of War, Jen Gatien, Billy Corben, World Premiere
Mistress Dispeller, Elizabeth Lo, North American Premiere
No Other Land, Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, Canadian Premiere
Patrice: The Movie, Ted Passon, World Premiere
Russians at War, Anastasia Trofimova, North American Premiere
So Surreal: Behind the Masks, Neil Diamond, Joanne Robertson, World Premiere
Space Cowboy, Marah Strauch, Bryce Leavitt, World Premiere
Sudan, Remember Us, Hind Meddeb, North American Premiere
Tata, Lina Vdovîi, Radu Ciorniciuc, World Premiere
Temporary Shelter, Anastasiia Bortuali, World Premiere
The Freedom of Fierro, Santiago Esteinou, World Premiere
The Last of the Sea Women, Sue Kim, World Premiere
The Last Republican, Steve Pink, World Premiere
Vice is Broke, Eddie Huang, World Premiere
Wishing on a Star, Peter Kerekes, North American Premiere
Your Tomorrow, Ali Weinstein, World Premiere
